Site not available to choose in events web part after reindexing and checking Local SharePoint Results

Hi @IntranetAdmin

Thank you for sharing your concerns. 

As your description, this issue might be related to the search indexing behavior of an older (legacy) SharePoint site. You may first review the AI's suggestion and follow these steps to troubleshoot it: 

Verify advanced permissions 

Go to the affected site > Settings 

Select Site permissions > Advanced permission settings. 

Confirm whether the site is using unique permissions. 

Ensure your account has at least Read permission on the site. 

Check search visibility settings 

Go to Settings > Site information > select View all site settings. 

Under Search, click Search and offline availability.

Confirm that the following setting is enabled: 

Allow this site to appear in search results should set to Yes. 

If this option is set to No, the site may not appear as a selectable source in the Events or Highlighted Content web parts, even after reindexing. 

Additionally, you could try to use the SharePoint search bar and try searching for: “Technical Services” or contentclass:STS_Site.

Please let me know whether the site appears in the search results. 

After you complete these checks, kindly share the results with us to better address the issue. 

Please understand that our initial reply may not always immediately resolve the issue. However, with your help and more detailed information, we can work together to find a solution. 

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The Events web part and Highlighted Content web part rely on search to discover other sites and their content. If a specific site does not appear as a selectable source, the key checks are:

1. Confirm the site is allowed in search results
   • On the Technical Services site, select Settings (gear icon) → Site settings.
   • Under Search, select Search and offline availability.
   • Make sure Allow this site to appear in Search results is set to Yes.
   • If it was set to No, set it to Yes and then use Reindex site on the same page so it is picked up in the next crawl.
2. Confirm libraries on that site are allowed in search
   • For the Events web part, the underlying Events list (or other lists/libraries whose content you expect to surface) must be searchable.
   • On the Technical Services site, go to the relevant list or library.
   • Select Settings → Library settings (or List settings).
   • Select Advanced settings.
   • Ensure Allow items from this document library to appear in search results? is set to Yes.
   • If changed, select Reindex Document Library (or Reindex List) so content is re-crawled.
3. Reindex the site and libraries again
   • On the Technical Services site, go to Settings → Site settings → Search and offline availability → Reindex site and confirm.
   • On each key list/library, go to Advanced settings and use Reindex Document Library / Reindex List.
   • Content will be reindexed during the next scheduled crawl; only after that will the site reliably appear as a source in web parts that depend on search.
4. Verify search visibility for pages and Web Parts
   • Browse to <site_name>/_layouts/srchvis.aspx for the Technical Services site.
   • Ensure Allow this site to appear in Search results is selected.
   • If the site uses unique permissions and .aspx pages are missing from search, set Always index all Web Parts on this site so pages and their web parts are indexed.
5. Confirm result source configuration
   • On the root site collection and on the target site where the Events/Highlighted Content web parts are being added, go to Site settings → Search Result Sources.
   • Confirm Local SharePoint Results is marked as Default at both the site collection and site level.
   • Misconfigured result sources can prevent expected sites and content from appearing in search-driven web parts.

After these checks and reindex operations, wait for the next scheduled crawl and then re-open the Events or Highlighted Content web part configuration. The Technical Services site should then be available as a source if it is within the allowed scope (e.g., same site collection or hub, depending on how the web part source is configured).

References:

• Use the Events web part
• Search results missing in SharePoint Online
• SharePoint Online doesn't return search results
• Manually request crawling and reindexing of a site, a library or a list